The present invention relates to a yarn winding or takeup machine for winding a continuously advancing yarn to a package.
A yarn winding or takeup machine of the described type is disclosed in EP 0 374 536 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,762. In this machine, a continuously advancing yarn is wound to a package. After the package is fully wound, a transfer occurs automatically from the full package to an empty tube. To this end, the full package and the empty tube are each supported on a winding spindle, each winding spindle being mounted in cantilever fashion for rotation on a spindle turret. To transfer the yarn, the full package is rotated by rotating the spindle turret from the winding range to a transfer range, and the empty tube from the transfer range to the winding range. Once the winding spindle with the empty tube thereon is rotated to a starting position of the winding range, a yarn transfer device swings into the yarn path between the empty tube and the full package, so that the yarn partially loops about the empty tube. After a positioning device has lifted the yarn out of the yarn traversing device and guided the yarn into a catching position, the yarn is caught in a slot of the empty tube. Thus, the yarn transferring procedure starts only when the spindle turret has reached the starting position of the winding range.
It is therefore an object of the invention to improve the initially described yarn winding machine in such a manner that the transfer of the yarn from the full package to the empty tube occurs in the shortest time possible. A further object of the invention lies in that during the transfer the yarn tension fluctuates as little as possible.